Posts Tagged ‘behaviour’

If you are a 50 year old man or woman and you cannot hold a knife and fork correctly, irrespective of culture, in polite company, why should you and your views be taken seriously? I don’t care about your wealth, your “past” or your approach to standard behavioural norms.

There are foreseen and unforeseen events in our professional lives (loss of a key client or a job) and personal lives (divorce and death), which causes us great pain, and where we have may little or no control. However, we do have control and choices over the length and depth of our “suffering“. I am talking about how we let events affect our behaviour, attitudes and ultimately, beliefs.

We can caste blame at others and adopt a victimhood position.

We can stick our head in the sand and procrastinate about taking the necessary actions required to move us into a comfort zone.

We can dramatically improve our self-talk, identify the cause and take action now, to improve our condition, and adapt or mitigate the consequences of our “loss”.

Those are very real choices in almost every situation. If you are reading this and thinking, that is great but I am still stuck 30 days on from my “loss”, get qualified help. There is a reason you are stuck, you lack clear thinking about the path ahead (fog), you have lost sight of past reference points (second-guessing yourself) or you are fearful (perceived, actual, catastrophic risks). You have almost certainly succeeded in extracting yourself in the past from similar situations with impressive results. You need reminding of your past success, and to first, give yourself permission to move forward. You cannot do that if you insist on keeping your foot on the brake.

“The Investor Casting Couch”: a mindset that says we are best served at our first meeting, acting cagey, and getting the other party (co-investor, adviser or entrepreneur) to reveal themselves to us first to protect our own self-interest, at all costs. In extreme cases, we must do as little as possible to reveal our own past, ideas or intellectual property.

Reality: Your actions merely serve to show that you have close to zero interest in building a trusting peer-level relationship, collegiality or collaborating in anything other than constant “fear” (stolen IP or contacts). You might, of course, be right on the odd occasion when you have a rogue across the boardroom table. However, 9 times out of 10 assuming that you have done your due diligence properly, you are merely revealing the depth and breath of your own insecurities. Why would you create that first impression? In the misplaced belief, it projects your superiority when all it does is project your stupidity. Why would anyone, except the desperate, choose to spend a millisecond further in your company?

I see this mindset widely adopted by experienced bankers, corporate financiers, private equity and venture capital professionals to the point of huge irritation. They have been a success in their career but they refuse to act like a success. Stop, in the name of common sense!